Computer and mobile phone cameras capture video images at a certain frequency. This is usually called a camera's “refresh rate” or “frame rate.” Lamps and various forms of lighting can disturb image quality as they often “refresh” using the power grid frequency. In alternating-current (AC) power grids, the power has a determined frequency at which it alternates. For example, most European power grids currently cycle at 50 Hz whereas the North American power grid cycles at 60 Hz. Although not visible to the naked eye, this causes light sources such as incandescent bulbs, fluorescent lights, halogen lights, and light-emitting diodes to flash of flicker at the frequency of the power grid to which they are connected. A mismatch between the camera frame rate and the power grid frequency can cause a problem in video capture known as flickering. Flickering is undesirable visually because the illumination of the video frames becomes inconsistent, making it seem as though the video image is rapidly switching between being bright and dark. It also causes extra complexity in the video image which leads to increased network and resource usage.
For example, when a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) web/computer camera standardized for North America is used in Europe, flickering is very noticeable as the electrical grid is synced to 50 Hz instead of North America's 60 Hz. The lighting indoors mismatches the camera's refresh rate meaning that the flickering of the lights is picked up and exacerbated by the camera.
Currently, solving this problem requires either a manual reset of the camera rate or a software solution that backs out the flickering problem using image processing software. These solutions are expensive and add delay and/or require manual intervention every time this problem occurs. Even those cameras equipped with some measure of built-in flicker compensation cannot perform this function at higher resolutions, requiring manual re-configuration of camera resolution to make use of such a feature.